We've had a long stretch of below freezing weather lately. Nights were dropping below zero. Our pipes froze two weeks ago and we spent Martin Luther King Day trying to figure out where the pipes were leaking. Easier said than done since our 107 year old house has virtually no access to anything. Dexter spent most of the day wriggling under the house and taking pictures so we could see what was going on. The only access we found for the leak was cutting a hole through the vanity , the floor and the wall of the bathroom. The frozen pipes burst the soldering back there. A friend tried to help us solder the pipes and caught the insulation on fire. Eventually, the pipes were back in working order, but we could still hear water running. That's when we discovered the stream running along our foundation. The main water line from the water meter into our house had broken. Even worse, our water pipe runs under part of the neighbor's property.


We've spent the last two weeks turning the water down at the meter (so it doesn't freeze again) and then running outside in the freezing cold to turn it up and then back down so we can take showers and do laundry. Our home teachers rounded up some people to help us fix the pipes yesterday.

The neighbors (elderly) let us know how unhappy they were with us messing up their lawn as we dug a nice big hole to find the leak.

It was quite an adventure and we discovered our sewer line in the process. Our water pipe ended up running under the sewer line.

The leak was due to errors made by whoever put the plumbing in originally. When they tightened the pipe with a wrench, it scraped off the galvanizing.

We're probably lucky the pipe lasted this long before rotting through.

With help from our friends in the ward, we fixed the pipe. We also know that these old pipes won't last much longer. Our summer project will be to put in a new water line -- hopefully in a better location.

A Wii Christmas

Thanks to the generosity of someone very dear to us, we were able to purchas Nintendo's Wii video game system. This was the big Christmas gift for our family. The boys had no idea we were getting this, so it was a great surprise. Emo, Sharon, and I set up the system and then wrapped a box to go over it. The funny thing is they didn't discover it until near the end of the present-opening. When Dexter went to pick up the box, he got a little worried and thought something had gone wrong since the box was

so light.

In case you aren't familiar with the Wii, let me tell you a little about it. It's an ideal system for those who don't normally play video games. The controllers are wireless and many of your movements in the game are done by just moving the remotes around. The game that comes with the system, Wii Sports, lets you play baseball, golf, tennis, and do some boxing and bowling. You box by punching the air with the controllers. (Sharon and Dexter are pictured boxing each other here) You swing the controller to swing the bat, golf club, or tennis racket. I love it because non-gamers like me can play as well as videogame addicts like Dwayne. We've had a blast boxing each other and having virtual family bowling nights. We're all very grateful that our special someone was willing to give up possible profit on ebay to help us have a wonderful Christmas.